‘So, we’ve had a cell confession,’ he says almost in a whisper, then coughs into his fist. ‘Excuse me. Can you settle down please? I said we’ve had a cell confession from a lad at Arlidge House – he says Fly Dent boasted about stabbing Mr Ross while they were working in the poppy shop together.’
His voice keeps trailing off, as if he cannot puff the bellows under it. Truth is, he wishes this cell confession hadn’t come in, and not just because he’s been feeling more and more uncomfortable about which side he’s on in this investigation. Even without that discomfort, cell confessions stink. Made by professional liars who are desperate to commute their sentences, they are about as reliable as drunk witnesses. Everyone knows it, and yet the trade in them by the Crown Prosecution Service is brisk to say the least. Every lowlife in the clink is eavesdropping on true renditions of crimes committed, if you believe the statements coming into the courts. He looks at the sheet that is jittering in his hand.
Statement from Conley Woodchurch
Age 15
Arlidge House, 5 January
DTO number: 5360CW
Length of sentence: indeterminate
I was working in the poppy shop with Fly Dent on Wednesday afternoon, 4 January. We were snapping the poppy petals onto the black centre and attaching the green plastic stems, and putting these in cardboard boxes. He was silent most of the time – he’s not much of a talker, is he? I was asking him this and that, what he was in for, who the guy was that he knifed; why he did it.
He said, ‘Bloke was an arsehole, had it coming.’
I said, ‘How did you do it?’
Fly said, ‘Just pushed the blade in, didn’t I? Went in smooth as butter.’
This is a fair and honest account of the conversation that took place between us. No one else was present.
Manon
All the myriad things that used to irritate her: tripping over his enormous shoes, left at angles like discarded bricks outside the bathroom or, more perilously, on the stairs; the lid left off the toothpaste, flecks of it on the bathroom mirror where his electric toothbrush has sprayed on exiting his mouth; the things he broke, like door handles, with his unaccustomed strength employed in the mindless opening and shutting, the fiddling. No one had ever warned her how much children fiddle: bouncing a ball, flicking a pen, kicking a shoe/wall/bag. Standing on your handbag for no other reason than that it has found itself under their trainer.
All this she misses. Any part of his disruption, she longs to have back. The house lacks his untidiness. It is still disarranged daily by Solly – Duplo and fire engines and Peppa Pig figures. But there isn’t Fly’s more grown-up detritus as an extra layer. Hoodies on the backs of chairs, schoolbag right in her path, books splayed in the bathroom. How could she ever have resented the things that told her he was here? He wasn’t even like other teenagers, fought mostly to tidy himself away so that his imposition would be less, but even the slither of his headphone wires on the kitchen worktop, she feels nostalgic for. She would gladly have him leave the butter out after making toast – would be grateful for it.
What she knows now, driven by her regret and guilt, is that the cell confession is bullshit, a small additional lie in a sea of lies, the author of which is DS Davy Walker. And she must knock down every shoddy last one of them. Mark is searching the Internet for a pathologist who can analyse the café CCTV and hopefully make sense of the panting. Was Jon-Oliver on something? Had he been beaten up?
She parks outside Arlidge House, slams her driver door; is cowed by slanting rain. Daytime but barely light, the car park grey and freezing. Inside reception she is at the counter and without meaning to make it so, her voice is brusque to the point of rudeness. ‘I want to see Fly Dent,’ she tells the woman behind the counter.
‘Are you on his AV list?’ asks the dreary monotone on the other side of the counter. The woman, now Manon takes her in, looks like a toad whose head is melting into her neck. A string of large fuchsia beads nestles in her neck fat.
Manon nods. ‘I am, yup.’
She casts about the reception area while Toad shuffles through interminable lists on clipboards or inside cardboard files. Manon shifts her body (her expansion, at six months pregnant, seems visible daily). Transfers her handbag over to the other shoulder.
‘No, I’m afraid you’re not,’ says Toad.
‘What?’
‘Fly has removed you from his AV list. It is his prerogative.’
A watery sensation rises in Manon’s chest. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.
‘Are you sure?’ she asks.
‘Quite sure.’ Toad purses her lips as if to say, Not my fault he doesn’t want to see you.
‘Right,’ says Manon, swallowing down her tears. ‘Well, in that case …’ She is rummaging about in her handbag for her badge, thrusting it in Toad’s face. ‘As I can’t ask him myself, I’ll need to see a schedule of all his movements since he’s been here, in particular the time and date of any sessions working in the poppy shop.’
‘Why would that be?’ asks Toad. ‘Are you part of an official investigation, DI …?’
‘Bradshaw. Yes I am. I am investigating a cock and bull story told by one of the lowlifes you have in this institution, a fabricated cell confession which isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.’
Manon has leaned so far over the counter that she can smell Toad’s Impulse-type body spray, and its excessive chemical overlay causes a wave of nausea.
Her demeanour must’ve successfully communicated the ‘Don’t mess with me because I am on the very edge’ vibe, because Toad hands over Fly’s entire case file.
Davy
‘He was never in the fucking poppy shop!’ Manon shouts. She’s been pacing about and pointing quite a lot.
‘What?’ says Davy. He and Harriet have escorted the bellowing egg-shaped Manon into Harriet’s office to prevent a scene.
‘Your cell confession is bullshit.’
‘How did you even know about the cell confession?’ asks Harriet.
‘Never mind that,’ Manon says. ‘Fly has never done a single shift in the poppy shop. He does cooking. He likes cooking.’
‘Perhaps Conley Woodchurch was mistaken about the location of the confession,’ says Harriet. ‘Which should never have come into your possession, by the way.’
‘Fly told me about the cell confession, because Conley bragged to him about it,’ Manon says, thinking she must not forget to protect Bri in all of this. ‘Yeah, it’s possible Conley was mistaken, or he’s a LYING TOERAG who made it up to get himself out of Arlidge House, which by the way is not a “cool youth training college”,’ Manon says, making quotation marks in the air, ‘but in fact an irredeemable shit hole.’
‘It’s not the only evidence against Fly, you know,’ says Harriet gently. ‘In fact, I’m going to tell you about something else, Manon, because you’re clearly finding it hard to accept that Fly had anything to do with the murder of Jon-Oliver Ross.’
‘I am, yes, because he didn’t.’